At the end of the past week, users of Microsoft's email service reported problems accessing their accounts. "Server is Temporarily Unavailable" is the error message that followed logging in attempts. Microsoft acknowledged the problems immediately, and revealed that it was hard at work to deliver a resolve. Confirmation of the email service's downtime served to inform frustrated users of what was happening, but they still had to wait a few hours before Windows Live Hotmail was up and running again. Microsoft announced that only a limited group of users were impacted, having been locked out of their accounts.

"Just wanted to let everyone know we're aware of the difficulties accessing Hotmail/Live Hotmail right now - you may get "Server is Temporarily Unavailable" when logging in. We're working hard right now to restore service to all users, and we apologize for the inconvenience," reads a message from Microsoft Email Support Space on July 27.

In the wake of the Windows Live Hotmail inaccessibility, Microsoft explained that the issue was generated by maintenance work to the service. The Redmond company failed to disclose the actual number of users affected, but late Friday the problem was dealt with, and Windows Live Hotmail was yet again functioning under normal parameters.

Kevin Johnson, Microsoft President, Platforms and Services Division informed at the Financial Analyst Meeting 2007 that the Windows Live platform accounts for no less than 380 Live IDs. "Let me give you a sense of the assets that are out there. The install base of Windows PCs is about a billion, one billion PCs in the install base. There are over 1.1 billion Internet users. These Internet users use PCs, they use phones. And today we have 380 million Live IDs," Johnson stated.

At this time, it continues to be unclear what the percentage of Windows Live Hotmail users that experienced problems is. Still, Microsoft denied the fact that the accessibility problems led to loss of user data.